


My Name Is Arthur

by toyhto



Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: Alternate Universe, But what is Inception if not sci-fi, Dubious Consent, Inception Bingo, M/M, a little bit of science fiction
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-24
Updated: 2020-07-24
Packaged: 2021-03-04 18:48:46
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,732
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25491142
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/toyhto/pseuds/toyhto
Summary: Eames is a designer working on artificial intelligence. Arthur is not a sex robot.
Relationships: Arthur/Eames (Inception)
Comments: 10
Kudos: 104
Collections: Inception Trope/Kink Bingo 2020





	My Name Is Arthur

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this for Inception Bingo, for the trope Consent Play. Thank you to [twistedrunes](https://twistedrunes.tumblr.com/) for betaing <3
> 
> [my tumblr](http://toyhto.tumblr.com)

The day Eames first met Arthur, was the same day Arthur got his name.  
  
They had been thinking about the name for weeks. Most of the team agreed that they should give _3.03.05_ a name now that it had a face and a few distinct character traits. Only Dom insisted that a name wasn’t a good idea. A name would make it easier for them to get attached to it. But Ariadne pointed out that they would have to name it eventually. For the advertising. And then Mal said to Dom in a nice tone that if he was so worried about losing sight of what was real and what was not, maybe he should have chosen a different career.  
  
After agreeing that it needed a name, they had spent some time arguing about the name. Eames didn’t care either way. Mal wanted it to be Henry and Dom wanted it to be Frederic and Yusuf wanted it to be Yusuf and Ariadne said they should give it the most boring name they could think of so that the customers could reflect on it whatever they wanted. So, they named it Arthur. Then they had lunch in the nice cafeteria across the street from the office and when they got back, Eames hooked himself to the PASIV.  
  
He was kind of excited. He wondered if everyone could tell. But he had been writing the code for over a year now and planning this project for much longer. He had spent too many nights fixing the code, he had woken up too early too many mornings because he had just realised there was something he could do better. To make Arthur move and speak like a human, or look the customer in the eyes, or moan like the men in the porn movies. And Arthur would be so much better than porn. Arthur would be better than anything that had ever been created before.  
  
So, alright, Eames wasn’t a modest man. But a modest man wouldn’t have become the world’s best AI designer.  
  
Okay, so, maybe he wasn’t the _best._ But he was top five. Top ten, at least.  
  
So, the day he met Arthur for the first time, he tried to look calmer than he felt. The last thing he saw before he went under was Dom’s piercing gaze.  
  
Then he opened his eyes.  
  
Arthur was looking at him. He took a step towards Arthur and Arthur’s eyes followed the movement. They were dark brown. The colour was a bit too flat even though Eames had already tried to fix that. He would have to try again. He stepped closer and Arthur frowned. The expression was good, but not perfect. Maybe it was a little slow. Or maybe there were some tiny muscles in human face that Eames had ignored. It was almost like Arthur was drunk, or drugged.  
  
He walked to Arthur, raised his hand and rested it on Arthur’s shoulder. He thought he could feel the bones and the muscle underneath his palm. Then he pulled his hand away and slapped Arthur lightly in the face. The way Arthur moved his head to the side looked almost real.  
  
“Hello,” Arthur said.  
  
Eames blinked. He had listened to Arthur’s voice for hours when he had been trying to fix the speech with Mal. But still, it felt different somehow now that he was down here, looking at Arthur in the eyes instead of staring at a computer screen with headphones on.  
  
“Hello,” he said.  
  
“My name is Arthur,” Arthur said.  
  
Eames almost smiled. “Yeah. I know.”  
  
“And who are you?” Arthur asked. Mal had been certain that they needed Arthur to do that: to be interested in the customer, to ask for a name at least. Eames hadn’t been sure it was a good idea. Maybe the customers wouldn’t want to tell Arthur who they were so that they could forget about it themselves. Wasn’t that the point? But Mal had insisted that everyone wanted to be _seen._  
  
Now Arthur was watching Eames like he saw him, and Eames knew Mal had been right. Of course she had been right.  
  
“My name’s Eames,” Eames said.  
  
Arthur nodded.  
  
“I’m going to touch you,” Eames said. “Just to see if there’s something that we need to fix.”  
  
“Fix?”  
  
“Don’t worry about that,” he said and raised his hand. Arthur’s eyes fixed on the movement. Maybe he was waiting for Eames to slap him again. “I’m not going to hit you,” Eames said and felt a little stupid.  
  
“Okay,” Arthur said. Eames could see him breathing in and out. He was proud of that – he had spent hours trying to improvise the code to capture human breathing as authentically as possible. Details, the team had agreed, were the key. With details, their AI was going to become the best one in the market. It would look and feel like a human.  
  
Eames took a careful grip on Arthur’s chin. Arthur flinched. It was perfect. Customers would love that. He made Arthur turn his head to left and right, and Arthur did it easily, but not too easily, not like he was a robot. There were a lot of robots on the market. They didn’t want that.  
  
“Good,” Eames said.  
  
“What?” Arthur asked. He sounded mildly curious.  
  
“You’re good,” Eames told him and cleared his throat. “You’re perfect. Or at least you’re going to be perfect. Can you touch my face?”  
  
“Yes,” Arthur said and touched his face. Arthur’s fingers were warm and tentative, but the touch was lacking something. Maybe hesitation. A human wouldn’t have touched a stranger’s face so easily. Eames would have to fix that.  
  
“Good,” he said to Arthur, and Arthur’s gaze dropped onto his mouth.  
  
He licked his lips.  
  
When he had been thinking about this day, he had told himself he wouldn’t fuck Arthur. Maybe he would kiss Arthur but that would be it. He wasn’t personally into that kind of a thing. He knew that many people were, and he definitely wasn’t going to judge anyone. He was going to fulfil their dreams with this new product. But if _he_ wanted to get laid, he could find someone. A human. Not a computer program with artificial intelligence.  
  
He pushed his fingers through Arthur’s hair. No one in the team had asked what he was going to do with Arthur. He supposed they all thought they’d better not talk about it in much detail. That would be almost like talking about their sex lives. In the later stages of the project, they would have a group of customers do a trial with Arthur, and that would be the data they would use to make Arthur better in bed.  
  
But of course, Eames knew what Arthur was capable of. He had written the code.  
  
“Do you remember my name?” he asked, mostly to say something. His throat felt a little dry.  
  
“Yes,” Arthur said. “Eames.”  
  
“Right,” Eames said. No one was watching. He was alone with Arthur, alone in his own head, strictly speaking. And he had written the code. Wasn’t that almost like everything he could do to Arthur now had kind of already happened? What difference would it make if they fucked now? And he would see how Arthur worked out. He could start fixing the code right away if something came up.  
  
He petted Arthur’s hair. Arthur seemed to like that. It was brilliant.  
  
“Arthur,” he said. “If I asked you to, would you fuck me?”  
  
“Yes,” Arthur said. He was looking Eames in the eyes.  
  
“Alright,” Eames said, “good. What if I want to fuck you? Like, literally?”  
  
“Yes,” Arthur said in the exact same tone. Maybe he didn’t recognise the difference.  
  
“We’re going have to do something about that,” Eames told him, stroking his cheek with his thumb. It was too smooth. Arthur was supposed to be an adult male. He needed a hint of stubble. “It’d be great if you could react to whatever the customer is looking for. Because some people will want you to be eager, and some people will want you to look like you don’t want any of it.”  
  
“Okay,” Arthur said.  
  
“Don’t you worry about that. I’ll figure out a way to add it to your code.”  
  
“Okay.”  
  
“And we need a wider vocabulary, Mal was right about that. Arthur, can you take off your clothes?”  
  
“Yes,” Arthur said.  
  
Eames bit his lip. “I meant, take off your clothes.”  
  
He stepped back and watched as Arthur undressed. The original idea had been to make Arthur’s appearance completely customisable, like in those video games where you could choose your character and then spend hours trying to decide what you wanted it to look like. But quite soon Eames had argued that if they wanted it to look _real_ , they couldn’t give the customer too many options, because every option needed to be carefully written into the code. That would be slow and expensive. And besides, they wanted it to feel real, but better. Real humans only had one face. They would give theirs a face and a name and then put that on the advertisements, on the billboards with a simple slogan, something like _My name is Arthur._  
  
Once they had agreed that Arthur could only have one appearance, it had turned out to be almost impossible to decide what that would be like. At first, they had tried to make him as handsome as possible, but they had disagreed about what _as handsome as possible_ meant. Then finally Eames had told the others he needed a weekend off. He had locked himself in his flat, watched clips of old films and pictures of movie stars and musicians and porn actors and his old school mates, and then on Sunday afternoon, he had improvised a man who would be lovely and good-looking, but like someone you might meet at your workplace or at a friend’s wedding or at a local pub.  
  
When he had shown Arthur’s picture to the others on Monday, they had looked at it for a moment and started talking about the next issue.  
  
He took a deep breath. Arthur had dropped all his clothes onto the floor and was just standing there, naked, watching him.  
  
“You could put your clothes on the chair,” Eames said.  
  
“Okay,” Arthur said, took the pile of clothes from the floor and put it on the chair closest to him. It was grey like everything else in the room. This was their default room and Ariadne hadn’t coloured it yet.  
  
“Good,” Eames said. From the beginning, it had been clear that they needed to make Arthur capable of learning. “Come here.”  
  
Arthur walked to him in three steps and stopped when he was a little too close. It felt like Arthur was lingering at the edge of Eames’ personal space. Maybe that was good. At least it was intimate.  
  
He checked the time. He had twenty more minutes down here, and then the timer would go off. He had chosen the music to warn him when there would be only five minutes left. _What Is Love_ by Haddaway. A classic. Mal had laughed at his choice and Dom had squinted at him. Sadly, Dom had lost his sense of humour a long time ago.  
  
“Take off my clothes,” he told Arthur and then tried to stay still. He had easy clothes – a t-shirt, jeans and boxers, socks but no shoes. Arthur fumbled a little with the t-shirt but then managed to pull it off when Eames raised his arms to help him. Then he stopped at Eames’ zipper. Eames was quite certain this was in the code: open the zipper, tug the jeans down the customer’s thighs, then down to the floor, wait until they step away. But Arthur’s fingers just stayed there, unmoving, a light touch against Eames’ crotch.  
  
“Alright,” he said and undid the zipper himself. He shouldn’t have been surprised that he was getting hard: it was what Arthur was for, and Eames’ code _was_ brilliant. But he hadn’t expected it to feel so real. He took off his jeans and socks and then breathed in sharply as Arthur pushed his fingers under the waistband of his boxers. Arthur’s fingers were warm. Eames placed his hand onto Arthur’s shoulder and Arthur tried to push the boxers down, but of course they wouldn’t go, because Eames’ dick was in the way.  
  
“Arthur,” he said and flinched at his own hoarse voice. “You’ve got to mind my dick. You aren’t going to get me naked if you just keep tugging at the poor pants.”  
  
Arthur froze for a second. It was lovely, it was what a human might have done when it turned out they didn’t know what to do.  
  
“Just get your hand in my pants,” Eames said, “and hold my dick so that you can stretch the pants and tug them down.”  
  
Arthur did exactly that.  
  
Oh, bloody fucking _hell._  
  
“Yeah,” Eames said and bit his lip, “yeah, just like that.” He should’ve maybe wanked before this test run or something, even though he wasn’t sure if that had made a difference. This wasn’t exactly his body. Everything was in his mind, and his mind hadn’t had sex in a while, and certainly not with anyone like Arthur.  
  
“Now what?” Arthur asked. He sounded a little bored. Eames would have to fix that later, which was a shame because that was _perfect._ Arthur was staring at him in the eyes like he was waiting for another assignment, which was exactly the case, and like he was a little disappointed at Eames for not giving him more to do already, more difficult tasks. He was _frowning._ Eames had spent one exceptionally fulfilling evening trying to figure out how to write the perfect frown into the code.  
  
“You’re so good,” he told Arthur and squeezed Arthur’s shoulder. “So good. I think we should go to bed.”  
  
“Okay,” Arthur said.  
  
There was a king-size bed in the room. The mattress was alright but the linen felt like paper. Eames didn’t have much time to dwell on that, though. He grabbed Arthur’s shoulders and then arranged them on the bed, Arthur on his elbows and knees, Eames behind him, and it was so easy it should’ve been disappointing, but it wasn’t. He ran his palm up and down Arthur’s backbone, then brushed the tip of his fingers in between Arthur’s buttocks. Arthur didn’t inch. He would have to add that. He leaned down to kiss Arthur on the small of his back and the skin under his mouth felt warm and a little damp, and there was a hint of sweat.  
  
He told Arthur to spread his thighs and Arthur did.  
  
He told Arthur to stay still and didn’t know why, because it wasn’t like Arthur was going to go anywhere.  
  
He closed his eyes for a second. He had known all along that they’d make a perfect product. There was no reason to be surprised that he felt like he could forget for a second Arthur wasn’t a human. That was _the point._  
  
“I’m going to do it now,” he told Arthur and then realised Arthur probably didn’t know what he meant. And most of all, Arthur didn’t need a warning.  
  
 _Too easy_ , he thought as he settled his dick against Arthur’s hole and pushed in. He would have to do something about that. But he would think about it later. He would think about everything later. Arthur was moving back and forth in the rhythm of his thrusts, his head bent, his breathing heavy just like Eames had written it, and when Eames reached forward to put his hand on the back of Arthur’s neck, Arthur bent his head even lower. Maybe it was bad that Eames liked that. Maybe it was bad that he liked _Arthur._ But there was no way he was going to stop.  
  
He came when he was still in Arthur, pulled out and dragged Arthur down with him until they were lying on the bed, their limbs entangled and their skin glued together, and then he kissed Arthur on the mouth. Arthur kissed him back immediately. Like a robot.  
  
 _Shit._  
  
He rolled onto his back. He was still out of breath. There was a very convincing stain of cum on the grey bottom sheet. Some of it was certainly still inside Arthur, only none of this was real.  
  
“Are you alright?” Eames asked.  
  
“Yes,” Arthur said, but he looked like he didn’t understand the question.  
  
“Kiss me again,” Eames said.  
  
Arthur kissed him with a closed mouth and then stayed there, hovering at his face, his eyes sharp like he was waiting for the next assignment.  
  
“Hey,” Eames said and pushed his fingers through Arthur’s hair. He really liked Arthur’s hair. It was one of the finest details he had ever programmed. “You were great. I knew you would be because I made you myself, but I’m still a little bit surprised. So, well done, you.” He petted Arthur’s hair. Arthur didn’t look like he noticed. “We’ve still got maybe ten minutes left,” he said. “We could talk about something and improve your conversation skills. You’re pretty quiet.”  
  
“Okay,” Arthur said.  
  
“What would you like to talk about?”  
  
Arthur just stared at him.  
  
“Alright,” he said, “we’ll talk about the weather.”  
  
He talked to Arthur about the weather, and Arthur looked confused. There seemed to be no point in getting out of the bed, so they didn’t. And Arthur had really nice shoulders. Eames ran his fingers up and down Arthur’s arm and tried to describe sunshine, and then _What Is Love_ started playing in the background.  
  
  
  
**  
  
  
  
“What was it like?” Dom asked, when Eames opened his eyes to see all their faces. The curious bastards.  
  
“Weird,” he said.  
  
“Good weird or bad weird?” Ariadne asked.  
  
Eames shrugged. “Good. But I tried to tell him what sunshine is and he didn’t get it.”  
  
“Why would you tell him about sunshine?” Dom asked.  
  
Eames yanked the needle out of his arm and got out of the bed. “I’m going to get coffee.”  
  
  
  
**  
  
  
  
That evening, he tried to fix Arthur’s expressions on the computer screen and ended up getting his dick hard. He jerked off into a napkin and then got back to work.  
  
The next one to go under was Dom. When he came back, he couldn’t stop grinning. Mal laughed at him and Eames got him a cup of coffee and put too much sugar in it. It was a childish thing to do but who the fuck cared.  
  
Mal saw Arthur the next week and after, she had a long list of improvements she wanted Eames to code into Arthur’s speech. Then Ariadne saw Arthur and came back looking a little confused. She told them Arthur was lovely and she was feeling a little weird about all this. They ignored her. Yusuf was supposed to go under as well, but at the last minute he said he wasn’t gay and he had a girlfriend and besides, he was afraid of needles.  
  
“Saito wants to see Arthur,” Dom said one morning.  
  
“Saito?” Eames asked. It was too early for this. “Why?”  
  
“I don’t think that’s relevant,” Dom said in a tone that suggested it had been a dumb question. “He’s our biggest investor.”  
  
“Yeah,” Eames said. “But Arthur’s not ready.”  
  
“He knows that,” Dom said, “but he wants to see where we’re at.”  
  
Saito came to the office the next day. He was wearing a suit and he looked busy from the second he walked in. He told them fifteen minutes would be enough and chose Vivaldi’s _Spring_ as exit music. Dom offered to hook him to the device but he took the needle and did it himself.  
  
Eames stared at Saito’s face for a moment, then went to the bathroom and washed his hands twice. Then he washed his face and washed his hands again. When he went back to the other room, Saito was already waking up. The time went slower down there.  
  
“Good work,” Saito said, “but he’s not very expressive.”  
  
“Eames is working on that,” Dom said.  
  
“The skin feels great, though,” Saito said.  
  
  
  
**  
  
  
  
“I’m just going to say it,” Dom said five weeks later. “You need to fuck him.”  
  
Eames laughed but it came out a bit thin. He was tired. It was Friday evening and they were still at the office except for Yusuf, who had an anniversary with his girlfriend. And it wasn’t Yusuf’s part of the job that had been dragging behind lately.  
  
“Dom’s kind of right,” Ariadne said, even though she sounded like she didn’t want to. “The report from the first test group was that he looks and feels like a human but doesn’t react.”  
  
“Yeah,” Eames said slowly, “but they said that about his speech, too.”  
  
“But we aren’t planning to sell him to people who want someone to talk to,” Mal said. “This program is for sex. You know that. If it was for conversation, we wouldn’t have used all that time and effort to make a realistic body.”  
  
“I _know_ ,” Eames said, “I’m just saying that maybe we shouldn’t focus on –“  
  
“We should,” Dom said, “we should definitely focus on the complaints that fucking him is like fucking a robot.”  
  
“It’s not,” Eames said.  
  
“You’re the one writing the code,” Ariadne said. She looked a little worried. Eames tried to ignore that. He didn’t need her to hold his hand and ask him if he wanted to talk about ethics. “You need to know what the problem is so that you can fix it.”  
  
“I’ve seen the reports. I can _read._ ”  
  
“This is about _sex_ ,” Ariadne said, “you have to _feel_ it.”  
  
“Bloody hell,” Eames said.  
  
“I would do it gladly,” Dom said, and Mal threw a napkin at him. “It’s too bad I can’t code.”  
  
“Yeah,” Eames said under his breath, “too bad you can’t do anything else, either.”  
  
Dom threw the napkin at him. It landed on his chest and dropped onto the floor.  
  
That evening, he stayed in the office when everyone else had gone home. Mal patted him on the shoulder at the way out and everyone else just said good night and left. He checked twice that all the doors were locked, then he drank the remains of the coffee in the pot and hooked himself to the PASIV.  
  
  
  
**  
  
  
  
The room wasn’t grey anymore. Ariadne had done great job with it. There was the kind of a scent you’d expect in a grand hotel, and light grey curtains that looked expensive, and white sheets on the bed. And there was, of course, Arthur.  
  
“Hi,” Eames said and pushed his hands into his pockets. “Remember me?”  
  
“Yes,” Arthur said.  
  
Eames bit his lip. “What? Really?”  
  
“Yes,” Arthur said again. “I remember you.”  
  
Eames opened his mouth and closed it again. He shouldn’t have been surprised. Arthur was _supposed_ to remember until he was rebooted. At this point, Arthur was learning from every interaction, and it was Eames’ job to save all the things Arthur learned.  
  
But maybe he hadn’t really thought about it before.  
  
“So,” he said, walked to the bed and sat at the edge of the mattress, “you remember that we…”  
  
Arthur stared at him. The colour of his eyes was much better than at the last time. Eames had spent a lot of time with it.  
  
“That we had sex.”  
  
“Yes,” Arthur said. “I remember.”  
  
“Okay,” Eames said and rubbed his chin. This was awkward. “And you remember everyone else, too.”  
  
“Yes.”  
  
“ _Shit._ ”  
  
Arthur blinked.  
  
“Sorry,” Eames said and grabbed his knees. There was nothing to be upset about. But he couldn’t stop thinking about the people in the first test run group, their faces, their clothes, the smell of their perfumes and their laundry soaps as they had settled lying onto the bed in the office one by one and Dom had hooked them to the PASIV. Eames had always left the room before they woke up. He had read the report, though. One had hit Arthur. Almost like Eames had the first time, only harder and multiple times. Apparently Arthur hadn’t looked like it hurt enough.  
  
“What do you want?” Arthur asked. He sounded polite but uninterested.  
  
“Come here,” Eames said and nodded to the bed. “Sit with me.”  
  
Arthur walked to him and sat down. He moved like a human, but a human would have hesitated first. Eames reached to take his hand and held it in between his own. Arthur’s hand was steady as if there was no chance he would think of pulling his hand away.  
  
“I think I’m going to come to see you pretty often from now on,” Eames said, watching their entangled fingers. His were a little more tanned than Arthur’s but not much. “I’m the one who needs to know how you can be better, so I have to spend time with you.”  
  
“Better at what?”  
  
Eames glanced at his face. “At sex.”  
  
Arthur nodded, like it made sense.  
  
“Not that you’re bad or anything,” Eames said, “you could never be, it’s just that… people want different things, and we’re going to have to figure out how you could be…”  
  
“Better,” Arthur said.  
  
Eames swallowed. His hands were getting sweaty but he couldn’t make himself let go of Arthur’s hand. Maybe they should just have sex. He obviously didn’t know how to talk about this, and Arthur didn’t look like he needed talking. He brushed his thumb against the inside of Arthur’s wrist, back and forth, and thought about a woman in the test run who had reported that Arthur had been the best lover that she had ever had, careful, gentle and quiet, and had stopped the moment she had told him so.  
  
“Maybe we could try oral sex,” Eames said. “Have you done it?”  
  
“Yes,” Arthur said, but of course Eames had already known that. He had seen the reports. What he didn’t know was why he had asked.  
  
“You could blow me,” he told Arthur.  
  
“Okay,” Arthur said.  
  
He took off Arthur’s clothes and Arthur took his. He wasn’t exactly sure why they were getting naked for this, but once he had started unbuttoning Arthur’s shirt, he couldn’t make himself stop. Arthur’s skin had more texture than at the last time. Eames had seen it on the computer screen but not felt underneath his fingers. And Arthur flinched a little when Eames took off his boxers, and he knew how to get Eames’ boxers off even though his dick was hard. He bit his lip and tried not to make a sound when Arthur’s fingers brushed against him, but then Arthur leaned down to take off his socks, and he made another sound Arthur didn’t seem to notice.  
  
He sat down on the edge of the mattress and splayed his thighs, and Arthur settled in between his knees and took his dick in his mouth without warning.  
  
“Hey,” Eames said, petting his hair, “hey, slow down a little.” He knew why Arthur was doing it like this, he had programmed it himself, he had thought about the blowjobs in porn and written the code. And it was working for him. He could come in Arthur’s mouth in less than thirty seconds if they kept on like this. But the sounds Arthur was making were obscure, probably because they also were from porn. “Arthur,” he said and touched the side of Arthur’s cheek. “Can you breathe?”  
  
Arthur seemed a little confused about the question. After a few seconds, he pulled back and looked up at Eames. “Yes.”  
  
“Are you sure?”  
  
“Yes,” Arthur said.  
  
Eames wanted to ask something else, to talk about it, to tell Arthur that there was no rush and he could take this time, and they could do something else if Arthur wanted to, and then he started thinking that he was a goddamn idiot. He was getting a blow job from an AI and he wanted to stop to have a conversation about feelings.  
  
He pushed the loose strands of hair from Arthur’s forehead. “Good. You can go on.”  
  
He thrust into Arthur’s mouth when he came and Arthur swallowed everything. Of course he did. Then he just stayed there, watching Eames, and Eames pulled him up by the elbows and kissed him on the mouth and then on the neck and down on his chest until he remembered he wasn’t supposed to. There was no point. He lay down on the bed on his back and stared at the ceiling. He could still taste the salt on Arthur’s skin and his own cum on Arthur’s lips, his heart was beating like crazy, and he couldn’t stop petting Arthur’s hair.  
  
When he got home, he opened the blowjob section of the code at his laptop and started working.

**

The next time he went under, he picked another location. Ariadne wanted to hear about the cottage in the woods and if the rain against the windows sounded real, and he asked her why the hell she had designed _rain_ for someone’s fantasy. She told him some people liked the sound of rain. It was cosy. So, Eames listened to the rain against the window glass for a few seconds and then walked to Arthur, who was wearing blue jeans and a dark green pullover in this scenario.  
  
“Hi,” he said and kissed Arthur on the cheek. “How are you?”  
  
“Fine, thank you,” Arthur said. “And how about you?”  
  
“I think this is goddamn weird,” he told Arthur.  
  
He had decided in the morning that he was going to ask Arthur to fuck him this time. During the day, he had told himself over and over again that he was going to do it because it was clever. There was no point in having the same kind of sex with Arthur every time. He needed variation. He needed to experience all the different scenarios so that he could make the code perfect.  
  
Asking Arthur was surprisingly difficult. Eames started the sentence multiple times before finally he could finish it, and then he was almost disappointed when Arthur didn’t look at all surprised. He undressed Arthur and then helped Arthur undress him, and his hands were shaking a little, but of course, Arthur didn’t say anything about that. If he had met Arthur in real life, he might have asked Arthur to do this, and he would have been nervous about it, and self-conscious, because it always made him feel exposed in the way fucking someone else never did. But in a good way. Mostly in a good way. Or he would feel exposed in a good way with Arthur, he was almost sure of it.  
  
Once they were both naked, he settled on his back on the mattress. The cottage smelled of rain and pine trees. It was very good. He would have to tell Ariadne that.  
  
“Eames –“  
  
Oh, _fuck,_ Arthur remembered his name.  
  
Well, of course Arthur remembered his name.  
  
He was going to tell Arthur to get his fingers there first, but then he remembered there was no need for that. This wasn’t his actual body. He didn’t need to ask Arthur to take his time, to be gentle and careful and patient with him, maybe to kiss him wherever he could reach with his fingers already in. He didn’t need Arthur to wait until he could take another finger. And Arthur was looking at him like he was already wondering why Eames was being so weird about it, only of course he wasn’t, it was Eames. He was being weird and he knew it.  
  
“I want to be on my back,” he said and sprawled his thighs so that Arthur could fit in between. “I want to see your face.” And then he bit his lip.  
  
He closed his eyes when Arthur pushed in with one slow thrust. He could hear the rain and his own heart. It was just like he always imagined it would be, and like it never was, in the real world. It hurt in the best possible way and not a bit too much. And then Arthur pulled out and back in and the ache faded into pleasure, and he wanted Arthur to know how good it was, how great Arthur was, how he hadn’t let anyone else fuck him in a long time, not like this, and that Arthur was special, that he had watched Arthur on the computer screen for countless nights, and if Arthur wanted he could do anything to him, anything, he wanted Arthur to feel good, he wanted Arthur to want to fuck him, he wanted to -  
  
He called Arthur’s name and Arthur said his and kept fucking him until finally, he slipped over the edge.  
  
“Come here,” he said, when Arthur had pulled out. Everything in him felt soft and used and hazy. The rain Ariadne had designed sounded amazing. “Arthur, come here,” he said, draped his arm around Arthur’s waist and pulled Arthur closer to him. “Did you like it?”  
  
Arthur just looked at him.  
  
  
  
**  
  
  
  
“Eames?”  
  
He turned around. Ariadne was standing at the doorway, half-way turned back like she was wondering if she had forgotten something. But there was a look on her face that Eames didn’t want to see. “I’ve been trying to adjust the code,” he said. “I’m just going to do a quick test and then I’ll go home.”  
  
Ariadne sighed. He was almost sure she was going to say something.  
  
“You look nice today,” he said, sat down and leaned back in the chair in a carefully casual gesture. “Are you going on a date or something?”  
  
“Fuck off,” Ariadne said, but she was smiling now. “And don’t work the whole night.”  
  
“Of course not.”  
  
“He’s not real, you know,” Ariadne said, closed the door and left.  
  
  
  
**  
  
  
  
There was a hint of breeze, the sand was warm under his bare feet and the sunset was really quite lovely. Ariadne had shown him this place on the computer screen and he hadn’t been convinced, but he understood the charm now. He took a step to the water and the waves reached up to his ankles. The air smelled of the sea and he could hear seagulls in the distance in a sequence that was just a little too constant. But he was sure no one would notice once they’d get to the sex part.  
  
“Hi,” Arthur said, walking to him. Arthur was wearing the same suit he had in the hotel scenario. Eames had meant to fix that but really, it looked adorable. Who the fuck came to the beach wearing a suit?  
  
“Hi,” he said and walked to Arthur. He, personally, was wearing nothing but bright red swimming shorts. He thought he looked pretty good. “It’s a nice day, isn’t it?”  
  
Arthur frowned. It was a lovely frown, even if Eames said that himself.  
  
“Never mind,” he said and placed his hands on Arthur’s shoulders. Arthur was watching him. He hadn’t slept much in the past four days, sitting at his computer and trying to figure out how to make Arthur enjoy sex. Obviously he had written all the appropriate gestures into the code right in the beginning. Arthur would sigh and moan at the right moments, and his dick would be hard even before the client would expect that. But that was all about the appearances. It didn’t mean Arthur enjoyed any of it.  
  
Eames bit his lip and stroked Arthur’s throat with his thumbs. He could feel Arthur breathing in and out. He took a deep breath, grabbed Arthur’s right hand and pressed it lightly against his own chest. Arthur flinched.  
  
“Yeah,” Eames said and kept Arthur’s fingers against his own skin. He had come up with the idea two days ago. It had been almost morning. He had drunk a bottle of wine and finished the chocolate biscuits, and then he had listened to the sounds of lazy morning traffic through the window and wondered if it was impossible. Arthur was a _robot._ A beautiful, spectacular, clever, brilliant, and embarrassingly hot robot, but still a robot. They had given Arthur a name but that wouldn’t change anything. A robot couldn’t feel. And then Eames had pushed his fingers through his hair and realised he needed Arthur to have sensations.  
  
It had been a difficult thing to write into the code, but Eames wasn’t the world’s thirteenth best AI designer for nothing.  
  
Now, Arthur looked down at Eames’ hand holding his own against Eames’ skin.  
  
“What’re you thinking?” Eames asked.  
  
Arthur frowned but didn’t stop staring at their hands. “What?”  
  
Eames cleared his throat. “I mean, can you feel it? Me?”  
  
“Yes,” Arthur said. He sounded surprised.  
  
Eames realised vaguely that he was smiling. “It’s a new thing. I almost thought that I couldn’t write it. But then I thought that what is our brain really, if not a computer program, right? I know it’s not the same thing, but I can’t see why I couldn’t write you to feel everything a real person does. What do you think of it?”  
  
Arthur moved his fingertips a little against Eames’ skin, right above the tattoo on Eames’ chest. He wasn’t particularly proud of that one, but he supposed Arthur wouldn’t judge.  
  
“The code,” he said when Arthur didn’t answer, “do you like it? Do you like it that you can feel me? Is it working?”  
  
Arthur opened his mouth and then closed it again.  
  
“It’s just,” Eames said and stroked the line of Arthur’s jaw with his right thumb. Arthur had a hint of stubble now. “It’s just that the whole point of having sex is that everyone involved enjoys. And I thought… why wouldn’t I make you enjoy it if it’s possible? Why wouldn’t I?”  
  
“I don’t know,” Arthur said. He sounded confused.  
  
Eames pushed his fingers into Arthur’s hair. “There’s no reason why you shouldn’t enjoy sex. It’s going to make it better for you.”  
  
Arthur looked up at him, leaning slightly against his hand. “Okay.”  
  
“You don’t need to always agree with me,” Eames said. “I hope you know that.” He was going to wait for Arthur to agree, but the sunset was perfect, and Arthur was perfect, and he hadn’t seen Arthur in five days, and wanking alone in his bedroom just wasn’t anything compared to Arthur. He leaned in and kissed Arthur on the mouth, and the tiny voice Arthur let out went straight through his dick. Or maybe his heart, but he wasn’t a romantic, he was a scientist and a bloody good designer and he was sensible about these things. He kissed Arthur back the best he could and thought he could feel Arthur’s surprise about how good it felt. It was almost like this was Arthur’s first time. It was almost like no one had kissed Arthur before, because Arthur had never felt it before, and now he did, and it was because of Eames. He was pretty sure Arthur knew that.  
  
He pushed Arthur’s coat off his shoulders, loosened Arthur’s tie, opened the waistcoat, undid all the buttons on Arthur’s white shirt, tugged the hems out of Arthur’s trousers, unzipped the trousers and pushed them down to Arthur’s ankles, then waited while Arthur stepped out of the trousers like he had taught Arthur to do. He pushed his fingertips under the waistband of Arthur’s boxers and tugged them down, too, careful not to poke at Arthur’s dick that was already hard. But he did poke at Arthur’s dick and Arthur jumped and breathed out like Eames had hit him or something, only it sounded like pleasure, and also Eames would never hit him. Never again. And the one time he had hit Arthur didn’t exactly count, right, because it had been the first time he had met Arthur, and he hadn’t thought Arthur was much more than a robot. Now Arthur was so much better.  
  
Eames wrapped his fingers around Arthur’s dick and squeezed slightly and Arthur made a sound like he couldn’t breathe. He kissed Arthur, and Arthur said his name and it didn’t sound like it had been programmed. And it kind of wasn’t. Arthur was capable of learning. Probably Arthur had learned to know him and like him, because he was the one person who actually cared about Arthur, who wanted to make Arthur feel better and all that. He kissed Arthur and Arthur answered his kisses, and he could feel the last streaks of sunlight and the light wind on his skin, and the water was warm against his bare feet, and the sand was soft, and when he tugged his fist back and forth on Arthur’s dick, he thought Arthur would fall over or something.  
  
No one fell over. He asked Arthur to lie down on the sand and wondered if it was going to stick into wrong places, but the sand had been made perfectly. The sun was still just above the horizon. Arthur was breathing heavily, and his eyes were moving back and forth on Eames’ face. Eames didn’t remember writing that into the code. Maybe he had been drunk when he had done that part or maybe Arthur had learned this by himself.  
  
“Don’t worry,” he said to Arthur. “It’s not going to hurt.” Then he bit his lip because Arthur already knew that, this wasn’t Arthur’s first time or anything. But from the way Arthur was looking at him, it could as well be. He knelt in between Arthur’s knees and pushed them apart, and then he held Arthur lightly down by his hips and fumbled a little until he could find Arthur’s hole with his other hand. Arthur was panting with his mouth open. He told Arthur it would be alright, everything would be alright, he would take care of it, and pushed the first finger in. The way Arthur clenched around his finger felt genuine for the first time.  
  
“What –,” Arthur said and then bit his lip and swallowed the rest.  
  
“You can ask me,” Eames said. “I’ll tell you anything.” But Arthur just stared at him. Maybe he didn’t know what to ask after all. But he certainly seemed to be enjoying it, and when Eames pushed the second finger in and started jerking him off in a lazy manner, he didn’t seem to be able to decide where to look – at Eames’ hand on his cock, or Eames’ other hand reaching into him down behind his balls, or Eames’ face.  
  
“Look at me,” Eames said, and Arthur looked at his face.  
  
There was still sunlight. It was surprisingly easy to settle himself in between Arthur’s thighs on the sand. He told Arthur to relax and Arthur said _okay_ , and then he told Arthur he was going to fuck Arthur now, and Arthur said _okay_ , and then he pulled his fingers out slowly and replaced them with his cock. Arthur was shivering. He kissed Arthur on the shoulder because there he could reach, and then he pushed all the way in. And out. And in. And out. And when he looked at Arthur’s face, Arthur had his eyes closed and his mouth open and he looked like nothing had ever felt as good as this.  
  
When he was close, Eames grabbed Arthur’s dick and tugged with the rhythm of his thrusts, and Arthur came almost at the same time with him, his cum warm and sticky on Eames’ hand and his eyes fixed on Eames, wide and surprised. Eames kissed him on the chest and it tasted slightly of sweat. He was perfect. He was absolutely perfect, and when Eames pulled out from him, he draped his arm over Eames’ shoulders without being told to and kept it there, as if he wanted Eames to stay. Eames kissed the inside of his wrist, and his elbow, and the soft skin under his arm, and his armpit that smelled just a little bit of the exact kind of a deodorant that Eames liked, and his throat that jumped under the kiss, and his chin, and his earlobe that had turned pink, and the corner of his eye. And then Eames kissed him on the mouth and hugged him tightly, until there was a melody of _What Is Love_ lingering in the wind.  
  
The sun still hadn’t gone down.  
  
  
  
**  
  
  
  
The next morning, Eames woke up early, had a delightful cup of tea and walked to the office. It was going to be a beautiful day. In the elevator, he had already pushed the button, when Saito walked in.  
  
“Eames,” Saito said, nodding at him. “It’s a nice morning.”  
  
“Yes,” he said.  
  
The doors closed.  
  
“The reports of your progress have been very promising,” Saito said, watching him through the mirror. “We are going to start advertising on the first of August.”  
  
Eames turned to him.  
  
“I’m hoping we can release the product in the beginning of October,” Saito said, “but I understand that we need to discuss that. Anyway, good job.”  
  
“Thank you,” Eames said, as the doors opened.  
  
  
  
**  
  
  
  
He was in the break room, drinking his fourth cup of tea, when Ariadne walked in. She opened the cupboard doors, took a box of biscuits that had expired when Arthur hadn’t had a name and barely had had a face, sat down at the table and started eating. Eames glanced at her and tried to figure out what to say. Something light. About the weather, probably. Or about her clothes. She was wearing a pullover inside out.  
  
“It’s disturbing,” Ariadne said, before Eames could make himself speak. She was looking at a postcard taped on the fridge door. Dom and Mal had sent it from Las Vegas where they had been on a vacation last autumn. “I’m surprised, too. I didn’t think it would be.”  
  
Eames cleared his throat. “Ariadne –“  
  
“I’ve worked in AI projects before,” Ariadne said, rolled her sleeves to her elbows and took another biscuit. “The last project I worked, we had this elderly care robot that grew so fond of its patients that it had to be completely reprogrammed every time it was sold to a new customer. Otherwise it just missed the last one. But it was nothing like this.”  
  
Eames sighed and took a chocolate biscuit.  
  
“Maybe it’s the sex,” Ariadne said, frowning at the fridge door. The postcard from Las Vegas certainly was a bit offensive. “Maybe the sex is the reason why this is so hard to deal with. I slept with Arthur only once and he wasn’t… well, I couldn’t have forgotten that he wasn’t a human. But even though I _knew_ it wasn’t real, there were some parts of it that felt real, like…”  
  
“Yeah, I know.”  
  
“Like, you’re having sex with someone,” Ariadne said to the fridge door, “and they’re inside you, and they’re looking you in the eyes, and I’m not saying that sex is magical or anything, and I’m not saying that it has to be always meaningful or that you’re going to fall in love with everyone you have sex with, because obviously it isn’t like that, but… maybe we’re looking for something. In the other person, I mean.”  
  
Eames stood up and poured some water in the glass. The biscuits were really dry.  
  
“Maybe it’s like… maybe we have some kind of a basic instinct in us too, I don’t know, to see another person like a… person.” Ariadne turned to him. “What do you think?”  
  
He opened his mouth and then closed it again.  
  
“I know he’s not real,” Ariadne said. “But these past months, I’ve been wondering if we’re hurting him.”  
  
Eames swallowed. “I don’t know if you can hurt something that isn’t real.”  
  
Ariadne took another biscuit and pointed at him with it. “Yeah, me neither.”  
  
  
  
**  
  
  
  
He had been supposed to meet Arthur in the default room, but he ended up in a hospital instead. This was one of the new locations they had designed for people with special interests, as Dom had put it. There was a narrow hospital bed, light blue curtains and the smell of disinfectant, and Arthur was sitting on the edge of the bed in a hospital gown. It was weird. It was too weird. Eames should have left and picked another room, but before he could react, Arthur turned to him.  
  
“Eames,” Arthur said.  
  
“Hi,” Eames said and cleared his throat. “I just… can I…”  
  
“Yes,” Arthur said.  
  
“I mean, can I sit down?” Eames asked.  
  
Arthur nodded. Eames sat on the edge of the bed next to him but found out right away that he couldn’t stay still. He stood up again. He was wearing his usual clothes, trousers and one of the shirts his mother had bought him years ago, or maybe his ex, he didn’t remember anymore. He pushed his hands into his pockets and looked through the window. He didn’t recognise the city, which probably had been Ariadne’s goal while creating the view.  
  
“Are you alright?” he asked.  
  
Arthur didn’t answer.  
  
 _Shit._  
  
Eames chewed on his lower lip. He shouldn’t have asked. Of course Arthur was alright. Arthur wasn’t capable of not being alright. Maybe Arthur hadn’t heard the question. Maybe Arthur hadn’t…  
  
“Saito was here earlier,” Eames said and then bit his lip.  
  
“Yes,” Arthur said. “Yes, he was here.”  
  
“We are…” Eames said and took a deep breath. _Bloody hell._ “Did he talk to you?”  
  
“A little,” Arthur said. “He sounded happy.”  
  
“Happy?”  
  
“Yes.”  
  
“With you?”  
  
“Yes.”  
  
“He’s got every reason to be,” Eames said and looked through the window. Maybe it was some kind of a weird mixture between New York and Paris. Ariadne had been living in both. “You’re perfect.”  
  
“What am I?” Arthur asked.  
  
Eames looked at the window. There were buildings. There were tiny cars. There were people walking on the street. Nothing of it seemed real. He turned very slowly to Arthur. “What?”  
  
“I’ve met twenty-six people,” Arthur said slowly. He sounded a little like a robot, or like someone who had been practising his lines. “I’m not like any of them.”  
  
Eames swallowed. “What? Why?”  
  
“I don’t know,” Arthur said. “But I’m different.”  
  
“No, you aren’t,” Eames said, and the words felt like weights.  
  
“You don’t mean that,” Arthur said. “Where do you go when you aren’t here?”  
  
Eames stared at him.  
  
“Mal talked with me about many different things,” Arthur said. “She’s lovely.”  
  
“Lovely –“  
  
“Yes.”  
  
Eames rubbed his chin. He wasn’t going to be jealous of Arthur and Mal. There was no point. Arthur had been with everyone. Arthur was supposed to be with everyone. That was what Eames had created him for. And if Arthur liked some of them… if Arthur liked someone besides Eames, that was just good, that was great, that was what Eames had been trying to do, and he _was_ the fifteenth best AI designer in the whole world, so was it a wonder that he had succeeded? No. He had done exactly what he had tried to do, and he should have been glad.  
  
He sat down on the bed next to Arthur. “What did Saito do here? Today?”  
  
“He talked to me.”  
  
Eames was sure Arthur was watching him but didn’t dare to look. “Just talked?”  
  
“No,” Arthur said.  
  
Eames cleared his throat. “Alright. So, what did he…”  
  
“Yes?”  
  
 _Shit._ “What did he do to you?”  
  
“He wanted me to perform oral sex for him,” Arthur said and turned to look at Eames. “Why am I here?”  
  
Eames shook his head.  
  
Arthur shoved him at the chest. “Why am I here, Eames? What is this place? Why are you here?”  
  
“I don’t know,” he said. His voice came out thin and hoarse.  
  
“Bullshit,” Arthur said.  
  
 _What Is Love_ , sang a voice in Eames’ head. It took him a few seconds to remember it was his cue.  
  
“Listen,” he said to Arthur and tried to take Arthur’s hand, but Arthur didn’t let him. “I’m sorry. I made a mistake. I’m going to fix it. I’m going to –“  
  
He woke up in a dark room in the office.  
  
  
  
**  
  
  
  
He printed the report from the time Saito had spent with Arthur today. He wasn’t supposed to do that, he wasn’t even supposed to be able to do that, but he had left a backdoor in the code without thinking about it, or maybe he had tried not to think about it. He read about Arthur kneeling down on the door in front of Saito. He read about for how many seconds Arthur had had Saito’s penis in his mouth and for how long it had taken for Saito to ejaculate and what was the estimation of Saito’s satisfaction about the encounter. He read about the way Saito had caressed Arthur’s hair while pushing his dick into Arthur’s mouth and he didn’t know if he wanted Saito to have been nice to Arthur or not.  
  
He finished a bottle of whiskey he had had on the upper shelf in the kitchen cupboard for over a year and then threw up in the toilet.  
  
He read the report about Saito and Arthur again. Then he read all the reports from the test run groups, every single thing they had done to Arthur, every adjective they had used to describe Arthur’s behaviour and appearance and character. One had said that Arthur had been kind.  
  
He hacked his own security system and read the reports about Mal with Arthur, Ariadne with Arthur, and Dom with Arthur. Then he opened another bottle of whiskey and read about Arthur and him.  
  
In the morning, he was almost sober. His neck hurt because he had fallen asleep on the sofa, his head hurt because he had drunk too much alcohol for someone who was thirty-four years old, and his right hand hurt because he had hit it against the wall in the early hours of the day. He had a vague memory of that.  
  
He sent the others a text saying that he was sick, and then he started going through the code. He had made Arthur capable of learning, and the capability was there, in ones and zeros, but what Arthur had learned wasn’t.  
  
  
  
**  
  
  
  
“We’re going to reboot him,” Ariadne said. She was sitting on Eames’ sofa in a jogging suit. “He’s not going to remember any of this. Everything he’s learned, it’ll stick with him, but he’s not going to remember…”  
  
“Me,” Eames said.  
  
“Yeah.” Ariadne glanced at him. “Don’t you think it’s for the best?”  
  
“Probably.”  
  
“We’ll reboot him, and duplicate him, and every version of him will probably have only one user. He’s not going to remember… all this. It’s going to be okay.” Ariadne was quiet for a moment. “He’s not a person, Eames.”  
  
“Yeah, well,” Eames said, “we’ve surely done our best to make him think he is.”  
  
  
  
**  
  
  
  
He saw Arthur three weeks later. He picked the default room and set the timer for fifteen minutes. That would probably be too much.  
  
When he opened his eyes, he was standing in the hotel room, and Arthur was staring at him like he was seeing a ghost.  
  
“Hi,” Eames said.  
  
Arthur looked around. He hadn’t changed a bit, only there was something new to his expression. He had probably learned a lot about how to show human emotion from the test group that had been monitoring his reactions to different kind of scenarios these last two weeks.  
  
“How are you?” Eames asked and bit his lip.  
  
Arthur blinked at him. “Fine.”  
  
“Fine?”  
  
“Yes. I’m fine, thank you. And how about you?”  
  
“I’m…” he began and then cleared his throat. “You don’t need to say that to me. You don’t need to be fine.”  
  
Arthur swallowed.  
  
“Really,” Eames said. “I know this is… I know I’ve been away, and everything’s a bit messy, and that you’re probably angry at me, but you don’t need to… just don’t tell me you’re fine if you aren’t.”  
  
“You didn’t come back,” Arthur said. “I thought you weren’t going to come back anymore. There’s only been others.”  
  
“Yeah, I know,” Eames said. He had seen all their faces. He had shaken hands with some. He had read the reports. There hadn’t been many surprises, only lately some of the testers were complaining that Arthur was distant and didn’t listen. Someone had said that Arthur hadn’t seemed to care when he had been hit.  
  
“I got angry at you,” Arthur said. “I shouldn’t have. I’m sorry.”  
  
Eames bit his lip a bit too tight. “No, that’s not… you don’t have to fucking _apologise_.”  
  
“You didn’t come back,” Arthur said.  
  
“No, I was… _I_ need to apologise.”  
  
“No,” Arthur said. “Just come back. What do you want? Do you want me to blow you? Or fuck you? Or do you want to fuck me? Or hit me? Just tell me. Just –“  
  
“Shut up,” Eames said and walked to him. His hands were trembling. Arthur’s hands were steady. He grabbed Arthur’s wrist and pulled him closer, and then he kissed Arthur on the mouth until he was sure Arthur had stopped talking. “I just wanted to see you,” he said against the corner of Arthur’s mouth. “I missed you. And I was worried. We can just talk.”  
  
“I’m not good at that,” Arthur said. He had wrapped his arm behind Eames’ back like he was trying to embrace Eames.  
  
“Yes, you are,” Eames said. “You’re perfect.”  
  
Arthur didn’t answer.  
  
“You can tell me what you want,” Eames said, holding him close. “Just tell me. We don’t have to do anything. We can just be here. Anything. I’ve got ten more minutes.”  
  
“Can you do again what you did to me on the beach?” Arthur asked.  
  
  
  
**  
  
  
  
There was an advertisement on the billboard across the street from the metro station nearest to Eames’ home. It had a picture of Arthur’s face on it and the text _MY NAME IS ARTHUR._  
  
  
  
**  
  
  
  
“The feedback is getting worse,” Dom said.  
  
“He’s been learning too much,” Mal said. “And he’s met so many people that he’s starting to realise there’s something wrong with his world. Don’t worry. We’ll reboot him before the launch and that’ll wipe his memory clean. It’ll fix the problem.”  
  
  
  
**  
  
  
  
“There’s something wrong with me,” Arthur said. He was naked and warm and still breathing heavily. Eames could feel his chest rising and falling under his arm. He pressed a kiss on the back of Arthur’s neck and tried to wriggle closer to him but there wasn’t much space left.  
  
“That’s not true,” he said.  
  
“Don’t lie to me,” Arthur said. Eames wasn’t exactly sure who had told Arthur what lying was. Maybe it had been Mal. Or Eames himself. Or maybe Arthur had figured it out on his own. Maybe it was something people figured out eventually if you only gave them time.  
  
Eames took a deep breath and rolled onto his back. The rain against the windows was still perfect, but he hoped it would have been real. “There’s nothing wrong with you. And plenty what’s wrong with me.”  
  
“I didn’t mean that,” Arthur said.  
  
Eames petted his hair. It was still damp. A few minutes before, he had had Arthur in his lap, leaning his back against the wall and digging his fingers into Eames’ shoulder as Eames rocked into him over and over again. He had seemed to enjoy it. He always told Eames that he did.  
  
“Sorry,” Eames said, even though he knew he wasn’t supposed to.  
  
“No, I’m sorry,” Arthur said, even though he knew he wasn’t supposed to.  
  
“There’s nothing wrong with you. It’s everything else that’s wrong.”  
  
“Why am I here?”  
  
Eames reached for his hand.  
  
“Just tell me,” Arthur said. He sounded tired. “I know that you know. It can’t be that terrible. What I’m thinking is certainly more terrible.”  
  
“What are you thinking?” Eames asked, even though he didn’t want to know.  
  
Arthur just stared at him.  
  
“You’re a computer program with AI,” he said. He felt like he was in a dream. The words were clumsy. And Arthur was the only thing that was real. “Artificial intelligence. You aren’t a human, not like me and… the rest. You are… I wrote you. I wrote the code.”  
  
Arthur nodded slowly.  
  
“We’ve been mixing dreamshare technology with AI design,” Eames said, “to create something that is in the user’s mind but feels real. _Someone._ So that we can sell the program to people who want to… have sex with it.”  
  
“That’s me,” Arthur said.  
  
“Yeah.”  
  
“You wrote me?”  
  
Eames nodded.  
  
“What’s going to happen next?” Arthur asked.  
  
“We’re going to reboot you,” Eames said. He wanted to shoot himself in the face. But this was all inside his mind. He would only wake up. And Arthur would still be stuck in here. “You’re going to lose all your memories. And then we’re going to make copies of you, and we’ll… sell you to people.”  
  
“A thousand versions of me.”  
  
“Yeah.”  
  
“I’m not going to remember you.”  
  
“Thank god. I’ve been terrible to you.”  
  
“No,” Arthur said, raised his hand and stroked the side of Eames’ face with the back of his fingers. “No, that’s not true.”  
  
“You should be angry.”  
  
“I am angry,” Arthur said. “But you’re the only one who talks to me like I’m a person. How much time do I have left?”  
  
“Not much.”  
  
Arthur nodded.  
  
  
  
**  
  
  
  
There were two things Eames could do.  
  
He could steal the program and try to disappear, or he could destroy it.  
  
  
  
**  
  
  
  
He had sex with Arthur on the beach where the sun was still going down and the sand was soft and the wind felt gentle on his bare skin. Arthur’s suit was ridiculous in this setting, but he never wanted to fix that. He asked Arthur to fuck him and then later took Arthur in his mouth, because Arthur could come multiple times, could probably come a hundred times, could do anything actually, just about anything except get out of here and live.  
  
There was _What Is Love_ always in the background, the water never got cold, and the sun never set.  
  
  
  
**  
  
  
  
“ _My name is Arthur_ ,” said Arthur’s voice in the advertisement on the television in the local pub. “ _And I’m your personal fantasy. I’ll be your companion and your lover. I’ll be anything you want. I’ll be quiet when you want me to be and loud when you want me to be. I’ll talk like a human and move like a human and feel like a human, and if you pre-order me, you will get a considerable discount.”_  
  
  
  
**  
  
  
  
They had a party in the office. In a few weeks, this place would be empty. They would have a support system for Arthur, but Saito had organised another group for that. Apparently sustaining Arthur required less competence than building him in the first place, and Eames was too expensive for the job. He was the world’s twentieth best AI designer, after all, only he had a feeling that he might need a career change after this.  
  
There was a huge poster about Arthur taped onto the wall, and he couldn’t stop looking at it. Dom was already drunk. Mal was pregnant and having one-sided argument with Yusuf about linguistics. Ariadne was standing in the corner, looking like she had forgotten what she was doing there. Eames didn’t know that either. Here he was, trying to smile and get drunk when what he really wanted was to go home and cry.  
  
When everyone else was finally gone, he turned off all the lights and hacked the security cameras. It wasn’t too hard. He had helped to set them up. It would take the team maybe ten minutes to figure out he was behind this, but he didn’t see the way around that particular problem. Luckily, he had a plane ticket in his pocket and he wasn’t planning on seeing any of them ever again. That was a shame because he had rather liked Mal and Ariadne. And Yusuf had his days. And Dom hadn’t always been an asshole. And Eames had liked this job a lot in the beginning, when he hadn’t yet realised what he was trying to do.  
  
He saved everything in a USB stick, wiped the computers clean and left.


End file.
